Jack Cabot
My Italian Journey
I have been a fan of Italian since before I reached the age of ten. My parents would take me to the opera, and there was something about how adult and grown-up it was. I wasn't able to understand what any of it meant until I started taking Latin in middle school when I was able to suddenly draw out large plot arcs. Then it snapped: I wanted to learn Italian. As someone who has always been musical, Italian culture and language play quite a lot in my interests, and so, when March Madness came around, Italian was one of the first thoughts that came to mind.
Final Countdown
April 1st, 2020
Understanding how  far I would have to go to be at least familiar with Italian, I set myself some goals for what I would spend the next 5 months working on. I wanted to be able to:Â
1. Understand a general amount of present tense Italian.
2. Spend a week in Italy
3. Watch and understand an Opera with my Italian godmother.Â
4. Past my march madness, I wanted to do a month away in Italy for language learning.Â
These were large goals ahead. I was not sure whether I would be able to acheive them.
Where I started
Without any idea of where to begin, I called my godmother. She is a fluent Italian speaker, raised in Rome, and a very close family friend. I asked if she had any advice on how to go about learning Italian. She had 2 good ideas: Listening to Italian podcasts, and taking courses.
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How far I thought I would get
I started to set some goals for myself. Italian is a strange language, where knowing the first 1000 most common words only helps you understand about 50% of the language, compared to French and English which with the first thousand words people can understand closer to 80% of the Language. However, with only 6 months to work, I set out with the goal of around 500 words.
A second goal.
December 1st, 2020
By this time, I had started making plans for what I was going to do over spring break. Go to Italy.
Final Countdown
January 20, 2019
With these two projects in mind, I spent the next few months by working with a tutor, using duo lingo, and listening to Italian podcasts
Where I was by March 1st.
Still behind on my vocabulary goal, I started spending more and more time on Quizlet and Duolingo. iPhone statistic says that I have spent over 250 hours on both of them combined. After learning my vocabulary, I was still excited for my upcoming trip to Italy.
Me in Italy on the first day.
March 25th, 2020.
This would have had been me in less than 20 days. I had my sights set on sightseeing, eating, and enjoying the culture of Italy that so many other Americans do as well.
Me in Italy towards the middle.
March 28th, 2020
Unfortunately, a man ate a bat in China. That had subsequently led to me not being able to go on a trip for my final project.
My last day in Italy
March 30th, 2020
With little else to do, and national and state borders shutting down left and right, I turned in a familiar direction: cooking.
Where I was
March 17th, 2020
By the end of March, I was sitting around 600 newly learned words. My learning curve was certainly not consistent. I used the free time from both breaks to catch up on the Italian work that I had to do months prior, and I used spring break to absolutely rack up a number of words that I could use.
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Cooking in Italian
With my Italy trip cancelled, I was looking for a new way to demonstrate my Italian skills. I got straight to work and created a video on how to make cookies and eggs benedict in Italian, with English subtitles.
Other small victories
March 30th, 2020
I worked on learning how to photo edit and making those photos as well as video editing. Learning Italian wasn't simply understanding the rules of a foreign language, but getting to learn many other things along the way.
My future goals
March 30th, 2020
However, just because I cannot go to Italy this spring doesn't mean I will never go to Italy. I am hoping to taking a few weeks of summer there, and maybe one day down the line I will be fluent in Italian!